


i found you in the fire

by yosgay



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Multi, Truth Spells
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-02-10 20:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12920031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yosgay/pseuds/yosgay
Summary: However long this lasts, though, he’ll deal with it. There are genuinely honest people out there who do. Bad liars, or they maybe even have a conscience. How they’ve survived in this world, Goro’s got no idea. Could be, they’re just good people.Goro wouldn't know.(Hit with a status effect in the Metaverse, Goro Akechi can only tell the truth.)





	1. but,

**Author's Note:**

> i've been in love with this idea for way too long.  
> and here we go
> 
>  
> 
> * * *  
> (spoilers for the whole ass game, up and past sae's palace. careful my friends)

Goro rolls his neck, winces at the tight spots. His jaw clicks when he opens his mouth to yawn, holding stiff and rigid. Can’t relax with Morgana’s imposing presence at the foot of the couch like a guard dog twice his size, stalled-engine purring in his sleep. 

This wasn’t a nightmare, of course. He didn’t even sleep.

Maybe he can pretend, though. That’s something he’s always been good at.

“Good,” the cat says-- the damn cat _says_ \-- he's still getting used to that, “you’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” he hears himself say, far, far away.

Morgana scoffs, flicks an ear forward like raising an eyebrow. “So no change,” he says. “Nice mouth, by the way. Akira will _love_ this side of you.”

“I want to see him,” slinks out, stumbling on the way-- but it’s out, and his hand throbs with teethmarks, twitches just to put it back.

“I’m sure he’s just _dying_ to see you too,” Morgana rolls his eyes, but the effect is lost in delicate white whiskers and expressive eyes, easter-egg blue. He’s disarming, even when he’s annoyed. Goro wonders if that’s by design, by whatever designed something like him, but he’s not prompted, and this thought stays his. Small mercies.

“I won't ask anything else,” Morgana says, flicking his tail, somehow haughty. “Not until Akira tells me to. We don’t know when this will wear off. But just know, mister detective--” he jabs a paw in his direction-- “you’re not out of the woods yet.”

Ha, that’s fine. He’s been in the woods his whole life. This, Goro hardly realizes he says out loud until Morgana clicks his little pink tongue. 

“Got a sob story for me?”

“No shortage of those,” he laughs, like crunching glass.

He’s starting to hate the sound of his own voice.

 

\---

 

Goro’s hands sting under the scalding water, and worse when he gets around to soaping them. He scrubs at the leather smell that’ll never really go away, under his fingernails and rawing his palms, digging into gouges to prevent infection. The ugly crescents that crisscross his hand blare from the meat of his thumb, across his first knuckle, an angry red there and underneath. He splashes his face, scrubs under his arms. 

A sorry excuse for bathing, but Goro has no idea how long they mean to keep him here, so he makes do, like he always has.

It’s getting properly cold outside now, crisp November air frosting the glass early in the morning. If this is really meant to last, maybe it’d be wiser to invest in a scarf, one of those thick knitted ones. 

Or a needle and thread. 

After he wanders back upstairs to Kurusu’s room, gloves fit snugly back in place, together with his ratty borrowed pajama bottoms looking like he’s playing dress-up, the door to Leblanc slams open with footsteps and voices. Not politely hushed ones, either, Kurusu’s the quietest among them. As they all talk over each other, Goro hears his name more than once. He closes the door silently, though he knows, from ample experience, just how thin attic walls. 

He sits down on the couch, all folded hands and politely crossed legs, a show with no audience, and picks a book off Kurusu’s shelf. He skims until the words blur together like lines on the road, lets the voices fade to the white noise of a passing landscape. 

They quiet down, just a bit. Someone’s talking more urgently, now. That harsh whisper of barely contained anger, the way you’d scold a child in church. They know he’s up here, they don’t want to make a scene. That’s fine. Chapter two, three, four, Goro’s not listening.

But then it’s his name, again, louder and clearly said to beckon, and he waits a few beats to answer so they have to call it again. He smiles, if only for the shrill jab of impatience in Morgana’s voice the second time.

When he comes down the stairs, he finds they brought the whole crew. All this just for little old him? He’s touched.

“Akechi,” Niijima says, pouncing the second she sees him. “How are you feeling?”

“You don’t gotta answer that!” Sakamoto cuts in, smothering the quiet _terrible_ that bubbles from his lips anyway. “ _Makoto_.” 

Sakura rolls her eyes loudly, drawing the room’s attention. “It’s just one _question_ , Ryuji. Can’t incriminate him for feeling like crap after yesterday.”

Niijima sighs, rubbing her eyes and smoothing out irritation from her brow. “Akira?”

Kurusu stands from a booth, effortlessly commanding attention. 

“I just wanted to say this with everyone here,” he starts, each pair of eyes gravitating. “Akechi, you don’t have to say anything. You’ll stay here for awhile, depending on what happens with this. Morgana will help me monitor you in case it turns into something worse, or gets as bad as it was in the Palace. You’re sick, you need to get better-- and honestly, like this, you’re a liability to all of us.”

Sakamoto nods, a jerky twitch of his head.

“That’s not quite what we agreed,” says Niijima, smiling, like winter wind and smooth steel. 

“Yeah. Sorry, Makoto,” he says, like he’s not. “This is gonna have to do for now.”

“I have questions,” she says.

“You’re not a lawyer,” Kurusu counters, easily, lets that hang a second. He might as well have just said her sister’s name, and Goro fights a smirk. “And then, pretty sure interrogation of the mentally impaired doesn’t fly.”

Niijima rolls in her lips. Lets it go. Smart girl.

Goro sweeps over all of them from above as they effectively decide his fate, leaning against the railing on the steps, settles his gaze on Okumura’s daughter. Her eyes look so soft cast down on the mug wrapped in her hands, her whole body curled in on it, fragile and fearful, no trace of the thirst and power that he saw spill from her in their sole traverse of the Metaverse together. The trip responsible for all this.

In both worlds, she looks nothing like her father. 

Unless this spell wears off, that’ll come out soon, of course. Maybe it won’t hurt her so bad, though. 

Okumura’s death is one of the few he doesn’t regret.

He supposes he’s lucky that train of thought gets cut off before it can slink out, when Akira says, “We’re agreed, then,” like they’ve come to anything close to an understanding, and closes the proverbial book on Niijima’s fingers. “We can meet here tomorrow, if anybody wants to talk more. For now, he needs to rest.”

Niijima sits, hands folded, serene as a frozen pond. She nods once. The rest of them murmur to each other as they take their coats and shuffle towards the door, contention so thick you can see your breath. Kurusu turns back to Goro, black eyes shining. 

“You don’t exactly get a vote,” he says, rubs his neck, peers up through his eyelashes, smiling like he’s oh-so charming. Goro bites through his tongue. “You understand. Can’t have our Detective Prince out there on TV telling the world all about us.”

He lets his mouth fill with blood until he has to swallow, and only nods.

 

\---

 

“Home sweet home,” Kurusu says to the attic walls, and Goro behind him packs more vacancy into his stare. 

“It’s filthy,” his mouth says.

Kurusu laughs, a soft, carefree thing, as he sits down wide-legged on his unmade bed. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“Afraid I don’t have a choice.”

Kurusu smiles. “Something tells me you would’ve said so either way.”

Goro definitely does not smile back.

He doesn’t laugh, either, when Kurusu calls this prison sentence a sleepover. Does joking count as lying? Buttering him up? Goro can’t say he’s sure. Either way, all he knows is, the less he says, the better.

Last night, stumbling out of Sae’s Palace with nothing but their sweat and a dozen empty curatives, they all let Goro’s hand stay shoved between his teeth, fine with talking for him. Bickering like grade-schoolers about what to do with their now-prisoner. Can’t let him go home, don’t want him to stay here. Well, Kurusu’s word is worth more than anyone else’s, and it turns out months of flirting have paid off. So here he slept, and here he’ll stay, until his tongue learns to betray the right people again.

Kurusu does his best not to say much, as they get ready for bed much too early, for fear of whatever might slip through Goro’s lips. He’s grateful for that. Sleeping ten feet from his biggest target, between them only a house cat and the floorboards. As long as Kurusu doesn’t ask, as long as Goro doesn’t talk, maybe he can be perfectly pleasant. Maybe, he can make this worth his while.

But, after Kurusu asks if he’s comfortable, what slips out in the place of the saccharine goodnight he’s going for is, “Not especially.”

Kurusu cocks his mop of a head, the way Morgana might, blinks those long eyelashes, like Takamaki might. “Need more blankets?”

“Some of your friends don’t seem to want me here.”

Kurusu blinks. They both know that’s not what he meant. But, he waves a hand. “They’ll live.”

“Will I?” his mouth says.

Kurusu laughs, “If you’re lucky.”

Then, his smile disappears. Then, more seriously, “We’re not actually gonna hurt anybody, you know.”

“Your victims would disagree, I think.” 

Kurusu’s eyebrows reach his hairline. They’re inching up further every time Goro speaks, like he keeps forgetting. And really, so does Goro. The words sound like him, taste like him, but you don’t get used to something else speaking for you, pulling strings to make you dance. He’s not thinking about it, but really, when you boil it down, this is just like everything fucking else in his life.

However long this lasts, though, he’ll deal with it. There are genuinely honest people out there, who do. Bad liars, or they maybe even have consciences. How they’ve survived in this world, Goro’s got no idea. Could be, they’re just good people.

Goro wouldn't know.

“Sorry,” Kurusu says. “Told you I wouldn’t ask.” He yawns, like he’s making a point, and turns off the light. 

“Night, Akechi.”

“Goodnight, Kurusu,” is, somehow, all he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's all down hill from here.


	2. you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking to Akechi was like a game, every time. A back and forth, a step-for-step dance they’d both charm their way through, but right now there’s not a whole lot to say beyond the weather that’s not like sprinting through a minefield.  
> And even just that, the conversation in Akira’s mind keeps jumping from _looks like snow, soon,_ to _I’m planning your murder._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (pushes my pony-tail goro agenda)

Makoto’s first through the door minutes after Leblanc opens, and Akira can’t say he’s surprised.

She greets him good morning, all quiet and sweet, like she’s here for him at all.

“Mornin’,” he says back, with a limp wave of his hand.

She orders a small tea and doesn’t shed her layers, settling onto the bar stool directly in front of him, in his full attention with her coat and scarf and all.

“Any progress?” she asks, cuts right to the chase, with all the concern of a surgeon’s knife. Akira just looks at her, noncommittal, rummaging for tea bags in a coffee shop like some kind of dumb metaphor. 

“He’s been here two days,” she says. “Has anything changed?”

Akira shrugs, swallows back a yawn. “The sun went down twice.”

Her jaw sets, her mouth a hard line through stone. A few days ago, she maybe would have humored him, would’ve probably even chuckled. Probably, he shouldn’t be making jokes about lives on the line. He should be able to help it, but it’s early, and she’s too awake for him.

“To be candid, I-- I really don’t think we have the time to waste.” She drops her voice, as if he’s watching from the floorboards. “Have you considered what this means for our plans?”

_(Akechi is only a tool.)_

Settling the cup on its saucer in front of her, he shrugs again. 

“We have until the twentieth,” says Akira. “We can afford to wait some more.”

She folds her hands, chews at her lip.

A few more days, a few more excuses putting off saving her sister in favor of their new favorite teammate, all that patience she’s so known for, it’s gonna run out fast.

Fetching a tea spoon, he adds, “So he doesn’t tell anyone about us.” Just to clarify.

“Right.” The word slips through the teeth in her bottom lip. “For us.”

_(Someone pulling the strings.)_

He nods, “Right.” 

This is barely a conversation, so much as it is an echo off a cave wall. Makoto won’t call Akira on his bullshit, and until she does, he’ll go on contentedly kicking through the pile of it. Lucky for the two of them, lying’s no problem at all. 

It’s fitting, after all, a thief running on borrowed time.

He can’t say outright that Sae’s not his priority. No, he couldn’t say that. Choosing him? Over the family of one of _them_? Well, then he’d have to explain why. Sometimes it’s easier, he’s found, to just pull rank.

“Okay,” she concedes, taking a tiny sip from her tiny cup. “I’ll... leave it to your judgement.”

_(This far gone.)_

Akira nods again, for her sake, but she keeps her eyes down on her hands.

Some of them take to being led easier than others.

“Thank you for the tea,” she says, handing him a few yen. “We’ll check in later.”

And then she’s gone, and Akira can go back to pretending they’ve got all the time in the world.

 

\---

 

Work at Leblanc is slow as ever.

Even slower, when you’re working five feet from someone you can’t make more than threadbare smalltalk with, mostly only the sound of clinking glasses and daytime television filling the space. For the better part of the morning, they let it do the talking.

Lucky for both of them, Sojiro’s not the type to pry, or get involved. Finding out they’re the thieves is still something of a fresh wound, and Akira’s not pushing it. The less explanation the better for everybody. Helps some, that Sojiro’s got a soft spot for Akechi, but he still only agreed to let him stay at Leblanc if he helps out.

“This ain’t a charity,” he’d said. “Detective Prince or not, put the boy to work.”

Fair’s fair. So here he is, tied-up hair and dirty apron and all, he doesn’t even look like himself, and Akira’s trying very, very hard not to stare. Even through the sleep Akira knows he’s not getting, even without a bath for however many days, well. What can he say. Maybe he’s just a sucker for brown eyes.

Talking to Akechi was like a game, every time. A back and forth, a step-for-step dance they’d both charm their way through, but right now there’s not a whole lot to say beyond the weather that’s not like sprinting through a minefield. 

And even just that, the conversation in Akira’s mind keeps jumping from _looks like snow, soon,_ to _I’m planning your murder_. 

So Akira deals with the few customers, and Akechi does the light work, and in the abundance of mean time, this goddamn place has never been more organized.

Sojiro’s in and out with the lunch rush (all of… two people, wow. Overwhelming), running errands, largely leaving the store to them. Akira tries not to laugh when, each time he checks in, Akechi turns the sink on full blast, pretending like there’s _so_ many dishes to wash, pretending like he couldn’t _possibly_ hold a conversation over the din. 

Leave it to Akechi Goro to find a loophole in _honesty_. 

Akira still sees his mouth moving, though, whispering under his breath, whatever he’d tell Sojiro slipping into open air however it can.

 

\---

 

Late afternoon Sojiro comes back, and Akira’s dusted with coffee grounds spilled all over him and the counter, Akechi with a wet paper towel scooping up the clumps of it. He pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath.

“That _better_ not be the Blue Mountain.”

“I’d only spill the cheap stuff,” Akira says, hand over heart. “Honest.”

Akechi breathes in, sharp, and out comes, “It’s the Blue Mountain.”

Akira throws up his hands, and Akechi’s cheeks color. He mouths sorry, and Akira rolls his eyes.

Sojiro shakes his head and turns right back around. He mutters, “I need a vacation.”

“Me too,” Akira says, when the door closes behind him, resists the urge to stick his tongue out.

Akechi hums, scooping the rest of the mess into his palm to throw away. “Where would you even go?”

Akira thinks for a second. “Probably back to Hawaii.” He points out his pinky and thumb and shakes _Aloha_ , and Akechi’s eyes roll so far back it looks painful. 

“I suppose I’ve never been one for… what do they call it?” He taps his chin. “Wanderlust.”

Stacking glasses, sorting coffee tins, Akira busies his hands. Shrugs. Says, “Everybody needs to get away, sometimes.”

Rolling silverware, meticulously folding, Akechi does the same. He barely smiles when he says, “I wish I was dead, sometimes.”

Akira tilts his head, clinks the chipping glasses together in some off-key tune. He probably didn’t want to say that, but that, Akira understands. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Akechi laughs, a short breath out his nose. “Perhaps you’re smarter than you look,” he says. “But I thought you all agreed you wouldn’t ask anything.”

Akira, batting those long eyelashes, says, “Gee, thanks.” Then, wiping palms on his apron, he sighs, a little less bravado this time. “Yeah, well… they’ve all got questions.”

“And you?” Akechi asks, stops his sorting, puts his chin in his palm.

Akira looks at him a hard second, wipes his hands again, and why’s his goddamn apron so wet all the sudden, anyway? It strikes him, quite suddenly, how Akechi can look that put-together, that in control of a conversation specifically about him having none. Ratty plaid pajama pants and expensive leather gloves and acne dotting his chin. A mottled patchwork of a kid without much to lose. 

No upper hand to be found, and he’s got it anyway.

Akira shrugs. “No shortage,” he says.

Goro licks his lips. “Perhaps I don’t mind giving _you_ a few.”

Is he flirting, still? He side-eyes him. “How many’s a few?”

“Three?”

“Seven,” Akira counters.

Akechi scoffs. “Five. Final answer.”

They shake. Akira’s smooth hand crinkles Akechi’s leather one when he squeezes.

Akira’s about to ask if he’s kidding. But that’d probably be question one, if he’s not. It doesn’t matter though, because then the moment’s over, the bell chiming with two whole new customers to service, and they go on working like maybe it didn’t even happen at all.

 

\---

 

Another hour crawls, the last few customers just gone, and the door slams open. Ryuji, energetic as ever, with Yusuke trailing behind, quiet as a shadow.

“Sup!”

“Hello.”

“Hey,” Akira replies, starting their orders before they ask. “The usual cool?”

They both nod their yesses, settle in while Akira works, Ryuji picking a chair from the far end of the bar, and Yusuke the nearby booth. They keep their coats, as well. They’re not here for just a friendly visit, no more than Makoto was, and Akira takes the liberty of making the drinks to-go. Save them all some time.

“Hey Akechi,” he calls, to the back kitchen where he’s cleverly busied himself again. “You can take a break, you know.”

He comes around, dusts some coffee grounds from his apron. “So the hens can gossip, I see,” he says, pleasant smile cracking like the spell won’t let his mouth keep the shape. 

Ryuji snorts, loudly. Akira can’t help but think he’s lucky that one was so tame, for the two of them. He’s been pleasant enough for Akira (which, wishful thinking aside, he’s not sure what to make of in the first place), but even rude is a far cry from his bellowing in the Palace after he was hit, from his lashing and panic. After he got his fist between his teeth, with all they’ve learned about him and all they’ve planned for the last few days, even that wasn’t as bad as it could have been. 

“…Excuse me.”

Heading upstairs, Akechi’s gloved hands are bunched in the bottom of his apron, teeth clicking together with every step up. Yeah. Coulda been much worse.

Slipping off his apron, Akira sets down the two mugs and slides in across from Yusuke.

Ryuji takes a long sip of his drink. “He’s a real charmer when he’s not kissin’ ass, huh?”

Akira lets his head hit the back of the booth, rests his eyes a second. “Would you believe,” he says, “that he’s a lot nicer to me?”

“Gee,” Ryuji scoffs, “I wonder _why_.”

Akira rolls his closed eyes.

“You really think it wise,” Yusuke says, “to let him wander around the café?”

Akira snorts, cracks one eye. “What, you mean without cuffs?”

“Or rope, perhaps.”

Akira leans forward to consider Yusuke proper, shakes his head when he sees he isn’t joking. 

“He won’t hurt me,” Akira says. “Not here.”

Folding his arms, Yusuke offers, “And if he escapes?”

Akira shakes his head. “Whatever he’s really in, you think he’s itching to go back to whoever and tell them all about what he’s been up to?”

Ryuji tips his chair back, balancing on nothing. “Yeah. C’mon, man. We’re not what’s keepin’ him here.”

Ryuji’s right; this isn’t a prison, even if he’ll treat it like one. This is a hideout. Here, holed up in the attic breathing in dust and fur, is the safest place in the world from whatever he’s gotten himself into.

“I don’t like this,” Yusuke admits, “but if you’re sure.”

Akira nods, firm.

“Alright,” Ryuji slaps both knees, gets up to put his chair back at the bar, “We were just stoppin’ to check on ya.” Grabbing his bag and heading for the door, Yusuke following behind, he says, more quietly, “You really gonna be alright here by yourself?”

Akira snorts. “By myself, huh?”

“Morgana don’t count!”

“Don’t worry,” says Yusuke, smiling, a hand on the knob. “I’m sure the Sakura’s haven’t left him alone for even a moment.”

 

\---

  
****

Akechi comes back down after the bell chimes twice, once to tell him Ryuji and Yusuke are gone, another for a new customer, so they won’t have to talk.

Trouble is, he guessed wrong, and the new customer is actually Futaba, another friendly check-in.

“Sakura-san,” he says.

She just nods, rolls in her lips, sort of looks like she’s glad Akira and the whole length of the bar is between them.

Akechi says nothing else, maybe having learned his lesson. He washes the glasses that don’t need to be washed, hands inside gloves inside gloves. He never does take those off, does he?

“So Sojiro’s making you open, huh?” Futaba laughs, a little shakily, drawing his attention back.

Yawning wide and indulgent, Akira says, “Can’t you tell by the bags under my eyes?”

Futaba sticks her tongue out. “Like you don’t sleep enough.”

“I need my beauty sleep,” he shrugs. “And look who’s talking.”

Futaba rolls her eyes. “Whatever, pretty boy.”

Smiling, oh-so sweetly, Akira says, “Aw, you think I’m pretty?”

Futaba’s mouth opens but the sound that comes isn’t from her. Instead comes a long hacking-cough from the sink, beginning with the suspiciously _yes_ -sounding start of Akechi’s voice and followed by a choked out “ _excuse me_.” 

The look Futaba gives Akira could crack his glasses.

“ _Christ_ ,” she mutters, climbs down from her perch on the barstool. “That’s it. I’m going to meet with Ann. You two have fun with your _dating sim_.”

Akira rubs at his eyes til he’s seeing distant galaxies. More coughing from the sink. God damn it. “ _Thanks_ , Futaba.”

“Don’t mention it.” She turns to leave, then leans in, says, “Try not to forget about the cameras, dummy.” And then, muttering, some genuine worry there, “…And make sure there’s nothing sharp back there.”

  
****

\---

 

Wiping down tables, Akira breaks the silence after another customer leaves. 

“Hope you had a nice chat with Morgana.” 

The store’s empty once again, lights dim against the setting sun through the windows.

“Oh, it was terrible,” Akechi says, cheery, the way he might say _wonderful_ , if he could still pull off sarcasm in his state. “He hates me.”

“Ignore him,” Akira laughs, flips his rag to scrub at a coffee ring. “He’s just mad because he’s stuck with guard duty.”

“I don’t need _guarding_ ,” he says, frosty over the clatter of dishes, stacking too hard for care. “I may be sick, but I’m not volatile.”

Probably, a conversation change is in order. Instead, Akira, stupid Akira, he laughs. 

“I wouldn’t bet on that.”

Akechi looks at him, incredulous. “I couldn't very well _say_ it if it wasn’t true, could I?”

He adds a plate to the stack, chipped where it wasn’t before he got his hands on it. Right now, handling the dishes and glassware, he’s a bigger liability to Leblanc than to the damn thieves.

Akira flips the rag over his shoulder, goes to takes a glass from him before it shatters in his fist. 

“Just because you believe it,” he says, wiping off water spots and fingerprints, “doesn’t make it true.” 

Fingertips shaking, throat working, Akechi looks like he’s about to let fly. Akira’s toeing a line, and he knows it.

Using his breath to fog the glass, instead of shutting up, he tells him anyway, “Truth’s not relative.”

“And if you believe I can’t kill you,” says Akechi, suddenly and too quick for forethought, “does it make me any less of a murderer?”

Akira meets his eyes, stays as level as he can. That’s it; a step too far, he knows, as Akechi’s lip bursts with blood from his teeth. Pussyfooting around like they are, any amount of talk and shit’s gonna slip out. It just is, but that-- Akira isn’t sure he was ready for that.

Good fucking thing there’s never any customers in here.

“Good thing we’re just talking hypothetically, then.”

Akechi’s eyes don’t leave his. His lip stays bleeding, his chin twitching like he’s trying to nod. The whole of him trembling, he’s barely holding back whatever truth he’s got. 

“I think there’s probably some more dishes to wash,” Akira says, nice and careful, pointing with his thumb, “in the back.”

Akechi laughs, off-tune, licks a swipe of blood. “Perhaps… that’d be best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and on we go.


	3. claimed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So in the mean time, Goro’s got to figure out which truths are actually on his side.  
> He sighs into the tabletop.  
> Maybe he’ll just have to start small.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fangs will give birth to fangs, but i can't walk away—  
> so let them breed.

It’s not at all lost on Goro that Haru hasn’t been around since they brought him here.

Makoto, for her part, is the mouthpiece, like Haru hasn’t got a voice at all. It’s just as well though, that she stays away. Flighty eyes and trembling hands like spun glass, Goro doesn’t think he could stand to look at her again without a scalding confession. He was never truly made to handle such fragility, and something in her must know that. 

Taking in the late autumn, when the shadow of sunset washes everything out in dreary shades of cold blue, Goro’s staring out the window of an empty Leblanc, waiting.

For what, maybe an unmarked car. A red dot winking onto his tired reflection in the dark window, right between his eyes. Maybe for one of the Thieves themselves, maybe they sneak up behind without being seen, make it quiet and quick so he can’t put up a fight. Even now, he’s sure he would. But he’s growing tired of this game.

Kurusu had to have told them what he said, all it could have meant. So now, there’s nothing much to do except for wait, and he was really never much good at that.

Patience he’s got in spades, but passiveness? Maybe not so much.

If Shido’s not coming looking, after four days not checking in, his teammates will do the job for him. They know something, now, of course. And even if they haven’t put two and two together, one question from them, even against Kurusu’s word, and the whole thing, all his planning, it’ll spill through his teeth like a sieve. 

Resting his headache against the cold table he’s meant to be cleaning, he’s wondering how he’ll talk his way out of it when he doesn’t have so much as his own tongue for an ally.

For now he’ll do his waiting, and he’ll do his thinking. This tip-toe, this tight wire balancing act he’s been on with the Phantom Thieves has to last as long as it can until he’s wormed his way into the Palace. So in the mean time, Goro’s got to figure out which truths he’s actually got on his side. 

He sighs into the tabletop.

Maybe he’ll just have to start small.

 

\- - -

 

Working in the cafe, Goro’s surprised how quickly he’s getting used to things. It might have been nice, in another life. Under better circumstances. Him and Kurusu, nothing but bored coworkers. Smalltalk and inside jokes and all that casual friends might have. Not that he’d really know, but it sounds nice. 

Nicer than Kurusu’s body always angled a little bit back to where he’s rearranging the stock, always part of him facing Goro. It’s awkward, him constantly turned that little bit sideways, especially when there’s a customer. And it’s kind of funny to watch, but it’s also really not.

He’s _still_ waiting, been waiting all day, for him to say something. 

Any conversation is a minefield, and he probably should be grateful they’re barely speaking since LeBlanc closed last night. But getting babysat like he is as the alternative, well. At this point he’d almost rather see it all go up. 

Almost.

There’s more than a dozen cans in here lining the shelves, a pound or so each. Enough on their own, if he wanted them to be. If he timed it right. If he aimed high. Stupid, but if they were really that suspicious, leaving him unrestrained was their first mistake. So whatever Kurusu thinks, then, is wrong. 

And that is, above everything else, monumentally disappointing. 

Less, though, is when he hears Niijima’s voice after the tinny ring of the cafe door. He moves on to taking stock, a shuffle of papers, making just enough noise to cover his listening. 

“How is everything?”

“Status quo, I guess,” Kurusu says, slow and casual.

They know he’s here, of course, right behind the little alcove. Whether they know he’s listening or not, they won’t say much. But they won’t have to, anyway.

She sighs, a little. “I suppose that’s all we can hope for.” She sounds tired, above everything else. “Some time this week, then, is probably best?”

Kurusu makes a noise like he went only halfway through clicking his tongue, and thought better of it. “That’s gonna be tough, Makoto.”

Lacquered fingernails on lacquered wood.

“Putting it off isn’t helping any of us.”

A pause. Quieter, then; “Someone would need to stay here.”

Goro freezes, forgets to keep his hands busy and pretending.

“I’ll leave that up to you,” Niijima says. “Morgana can stay. Yusuke, maybe—“

“Our nav, you mean? Or our hardest hitter?” Kurusu’s voice, it’s chilling how even it is. He’s really not budging, and something about that really makes Goro wonder.

“Mona’s not actually our—“

“I’m not leaving anyone here.”

Something clanks, like a cup brought down too fast on its saucer.

“Akira.” Her voice sounds tired, even a little pleading. Goro would smile, if they were talking about anything other than leaving him chained here like a dog.

“We can talk about this later? With everyone else here.”

And Makoto, between sighs, she says, “You’re really running out of laters.”

Shuffling, like she’s putting on her coat. Rustling, like she’s paying for her tea. Whispering, lower this time, like they don’t want him hearing. 

Goro’s gears start turning. So they’re going back in. This week? He can make it that long without slipping again. If she’s here, and wanting to go forward, Kurusu hasn’t said anything about his little outburst, like he should have. Maybe, he didn’t think it smart to mention. Maybe, Fearless Leader Joker’s just trying to keep the peace.

And if he is, then maybe Goro’s got a shot at this after all. 

 

\- - -

 

Nights, now, are mostly just quiet.

Less weird than Goro would have thought, considering he’s spending them sitting in amicable silence with a talking cat his number one hit target. But mostly, after the cafe closes, it’s him reading, Kurusu pretending to do his homework, and Morgana chomping at the bit to enforce a proper sleep schedule.

Looks comfortable enough, probably, from the outside. But the air between the three of them, it could choke you.

Must be hard, Goro thinks, too afraid to speak in your own home. But then, this place isn’t Kurusu’s, and Goro already knows just how hard, from way back when. Remembers well, what this kind of learned silence tastes like. 

On the other hand, though, since the first words Goro could understand out of the cat’s mouth, this is the first time he’s shut up. First time he’s ever had to, is Goro’s guess. His tail’s been flicking anxious arcs across the wood of Kurusu’s desk for the better part of an hour while he grooms, quiet, quiet. Goro’s thinking of placing bets on when he’ll snap.

So he stops, finger halfway to turning a page, peers over the edge of his book to Kurusu at his desk.

“So,” says Goro, placid as kicking a hornet’s nest.

Kurusu, for his part, has the decency not to jump; doesn’t even pick up the pencil from his paper.

“So,” he echoes, casual, and oh, so careful.

Goro means to dance around. Give him a show. Really, he does. Sort of wants to see how Kurusu will squirm to navigate the bear traps, but his game’s a little stunted, these days.

“Planning a Palace trip this week, I hear.”

Kurusu pauses, flicks his pencil between his fingers. Glancing up from his homework, he shrugs. “Not gonna go away on its own.” 

“Mm.”

Kurusu hums back, an aborted exhale, thumbs through the history textbook they both know he’s not reading. Morgana’s watching them both, whiskers twitching like he was told not to say a word. 

“So what day are we going in, then?”

Morgana makes his first appearance all evening, Goro tallying a mental victory against himself. “ _We_ , huh?”

The look Kurusu shoots him could crack the window. Morgana sits again, ears ever so slightly back.

“That might be… difficult,” is what he settles on.

Goro’s tongue twitches. He rolls in his lips to breathe out the words that well up and mean to flood. Anything wants to come out but he’s learning fast, stinging hands and bitten lips and all.

“You’ll take me,” he says, choosing the words to pretend they’re even really his anymore, “when you go.”

Kurusu turns to look him up and down plainly, eyes black and unimpressed. “And how’re you gonna convince me I should?”

Cocky little shit, letting Joker bleed through his stare. 

And the bow doesn't break, no. But hell if it doesn’t crack around the edges. Goro stands from the couch, intimidating as ever in plaid pants and an old Featherman tshirt.

Morgana’s between them both like a reminder, as soon as he moves, but Kurusu barely blinks.

“ _Liability_ , Kurusu,” says Goro. “Or do you really mean to keep me prisoner until the _forces of goodness_ have triumphed?”

He licks his lips, like _try again_. Goro looks only at the bridge of his nose, not quite his eyes, wishing there was at least one more mask between them.

He scoffs, a truth forming in his mind that’s on _his_ side for once. “If I don’t go back, how else do you expect this to go away?”

Kurusu’s eyes dart to the side, quick and furtive. He flicks the pencil between his fingers, a time too many, and Joker’s gone all at once.

“Yeah,” he says, “I guess that’s true.”

Cold seeps through Goro, the burning reminder of the knives in his throat, and the potions they tore through in those first few minutes that couldn’t even hope to shut him up.

Oh, Kurusu’s lucky he can lie. Less lucky, though, that Goro could see it even if his eyes were closed.

“You don’t think the solution is in there,” he says, slow and mechanical, sore jaw working on its own.

Kurusu shrugs his level gaze, keeping his hands still now, holding his every inch firm like he only just remembered Goro’s a damn detective. 

“I think, he says, Goro watching him pick and choose every single word, “this whole thing just might… take awhile.”

And Goro has to keep his whole body still to really let that one go.

Kurusu though, he doesn’t turn away. Gaze flicking to Morgana’s wide eyes and back ears, he licks his lips. As if there’s even a chance cat couldn’t hear, he says, low, “I didn’t say anything, you know.”

His gaze is bright, intent, like just Goro looking at him will explain the rest. He blinks, tilts his head like he’s waiting for it to click, whatever _anything_ he means, long lashes fluttering.

Careful little eyes, what you see.

Goro takes a breath, deep as he can, another mask slotting back in place. He calls up a smirk, straight out of Joker’s handbook.

“Protecting me from something, Kurusu?”

And Kurusu opens his mouth, to maybe use up a question Goro promised him, the offer he still never took. But he shuts it, paints on a nice smile. Why, Goro hopes his mouth doesn’t think to ask.

“Wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea, is all.”

Morgana’s looking between them, head cocked. Kurusu will have to come up with something, after this, lie for him again. Goro’s almost flattered, almost wants to laugh in his face.

Careful little ears, what you hear.

What kind of fucking game is he playing? Is Goro a hostage, or a fugitive? Maybe he really is just keeping the peace, keeping Goro safer than he deserves. But what’s peace, anyway, in a mutiny? 

Careful little mouth, what you say. 

And Goro’s says, “Well maybe,” it spits, “you fucking should have.”

 

_\- - -_

 

_The air’s just a little too cold here._

_Even in the rooms where you can feel it’s sweltering, clothes sticking to you under the arms and behind the knees, there’s still that whistle of wind steady through every room. It’s nothing that’s rustling your hair, nothing you can really feel, save for the goosebumps. You’re inside, this place is, so it doesn’t make sense. But admittedly, a cool breeze is the last thing here that would break the illusion of believable._

_But even so, for some stupid reason, that’s what you’re caught up thinking about when Oracle gives the first warning. It’s a late one, for her. And you’re turned around, thinking of wind-blown skin and freezer-burn to place the smell._

_Whatever sneaks up, it sneaks fast. You’re down before she can tell you which way to block from, the spell whispered in that familiar doubled-cadence ringing in your ears while it all goes dark._

_And waking up, to eight pairs of shoes and shadows over you to match, waking up’s worse than going out. The pain’s all in your throat, acid melting holes your tongue, so bad and so sudden it's gotta be killing you, and the panic’s got you clawing at legs and feet and your own neck til it’s warm and wet, and you’re choking on sawblades, and every screamed word out of your mouth isn’t yours until they hold you down after the potions don’t work except to stop the bleeding, and they drag you kicking and screaming towards the exit, your own teeth breaking through the fine red leather of your gloves to keep the poison back, and all you can remember thinking is;_

_Please, turn back out the lights._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's been a year. goro has depression and so do i


	4. it;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haru smiles at him again, customer-service sweet. Says, “We’re all on the same side, Akira,” before she makes her way back up the stairs.  
> “You’re the second person to tell me that today,” he mutters, into the air after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and if there's blood on the roots, then there's blood on the branches.

Makoto’s gone over the plan with him half a dozen times, since they ironed out the details. Since they accounted for their wrench in the works.

For Akira’s part, no matter how it comes to, all he’s really gotta do is put up his hands. One more trip into the arms of the state, and they’ll pinkie-promise to get him out in one piece. He trusts them. It’s simple, and it’s clever; and it’ll work, and Akira’s hands aren’t shaking because he thinks it won’t. He wraps one a little tighter around the rail, same as most mornings, and blames it on uneven tracks, on the sway of the train.

At least his backpack is lighter, without it’s bundle of fur.

Morgana’s home, keeping an eye on Akechi, and he can handle it. With Futaba on call and Sojiro downstairs, that’ll pacify the rest of them, but Akira’s the one who’s looked in his eyes every day this week and knows he won’t do a thing.

The train still sways his stomach with it, left to right.

Akira should maybe be more worried with what he might say than do, but if Akechi’s as smart as he claims to be, then in front of his prison guards he’ll stare at the wall, nap, duct tape his fucking mouth. Whatever it takes to keep it shut. For this plan of theirs to not matter anymore, Akira can only just sit here and hope he comes home to nothing but a few more teeth marks in those leather gloves.

Another outburst or two, and there’ll be no more covering for him. And then Akira won’t have any other choice.

 

\- - -

 

Too much stays on his mind through a foggy morning, through notes he doodles over and lectures he doesn’t hear. He’s wandering through his own head like a tourist, maps and blueprints so illegible that when a tray smacks down on the table in front of him, Akira hardly even jumps.

“Whatcha thinkin’?”

Looking up from his lunch, barely remembering how he got here, Akira’s kinda wondering the same thing.

“Nothing much.”

Ryuji hums, his feet tapping the floor tapping his headache.

“So… what’s the plan for today? You gonna train with me?”

Akira looks up slow, looks at Ryuji maybe a second too long, maybe a shade too flat, gives him a chance to catch on so he doesn’t have to be the one to bring it up in public. Ryuji stares though, puts up a hand like, So? and Akira’s sigh comes out politely half-aborted. He puts a chip in his mouth, screw his manners, talks around it to take the eye roll out of his voice.

“Guard duty,” he says, waves a hand like it’s homework, like it’s a bummer, like it just can’t be helped.

“Yeah. Right.” Ryuji looks around, coast-is-clear style. “You ever gonna let us help with him, or what?”

And there’s the bait, hanging pretty for the world to see. The line’s only just started going taut, and Akira’s hands are already stinging.

“It’s not a big deal,” says Akira. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Been wondering,” he starts, and now Akira’s really weighing what he’d do if he just got up and left. “Should we be goin’ out of our way like this?”

Akira’s fingers are greasy when he flips his phone open, looking for some distraction. To his reflection in the screen, he says, “What, you think we should have left him there?”

“What? Dude, no, but like, everybody’s too scared to even talk to him.” He sips milk through a straw, chewing the top and going til it’s slurping loud on just air. “Treatin’ him more like a damn house guest.”

“Yeah. We’ll just drop him at his place next time,” says Akira, knives in his eyes creeping into his voice. If he’s shooting for teasing, he’s a couple dozen rings off-center. “Make sure he’s got another interview booked.”

Ryuji stops, eyebrows pinching. “That ain’t— what? Dude, I’m just saying, maybe—“

“Yeah, I got it,” says Akira, “it’s whatever.” And would you believe him if he said he really wasn’t trying to be a dick? Ryuji’s loud everything’s loud and maybe a sick day woulda been for the best.

“Hell’s your problem?” Ryuji’s eyes narrow. His voice stays steady and measured, the first bit of quiet anger Akira’s ever seen from him. “I’m not the one who wants to frickin’ lock him up.” Stabbing his finger in the air, he says, “I’m on _your_ side, dude.”

Akira almost wants to laugh in his face. Everybody's on everybody’s side.

“I know you wanna help him, and I know we gotta, I’m just _saying_ , is all.” Ryuji looks around again, side to side. No one’s listening, not to them. Never would, but if they were, who would even care? “We’re goin’ out of our way,” he says. “Don’t we got other shit to worry about? He’s still playing us.”

“We have all the cards, right?” Akira rubs his temples like a surrender, all at once too tired to finish the fight he started. “He can’t move until we do. He can’t even lie—”

“Bullshit he can’t.” Akira snaps to meet his eyes, a scoff in his throat where he’s about to argue. But Ryuji says, “That guy needs more than some spell to tell the truth.”

And Akira stops, closes his mouth up, because he knows.

His hair, his clothes, his goddamn smile, he doesn’t have to talk to still be a liar.

Akira’s shoulders tighten like a wind-up doll, and Ryuji looks at him like he’s just now seeing some bigger picture.

“I’m with you on this for a reason,” he says, leans in, picks the first time in his life to keep his voice low and even. “‘Cos helping him’s the right thing to do. Not ‘cause you got a damn _crush_ or something.”

Akira flinches, but only just.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“You’re one to talk, dude!”

“Am I interrupting?”

They both jump back from each other, Ann’s eyes casting back and forth until they both stammer out some kind of hello. Ryuji’s no actor, but Ann’s no detective. She rolls her eyes and chalks it up to whatever.

“Got a sec to talk, after school?”

They look at each other, agreeing with their eyes to leave it for later. Ann eyes them both up and down, appraising one more time. There’s just a little hint of something sad on her face when she turns on her heel and goes, doesn’t wait for them to ask anything else.

 

\- - -

 

When they meet up after classes, making for the stairs together, Akira half-expects Ryuji to ghost him. Not really Ryuji’s style, but that’d be fine. It’s whatever. A couple degrees warmer at group meetings wouldn’t chase the chill now, and Akira, he’s really starting to deserve it. Instead, though, Ryuji stops just outside the door, toes the ground with his shoe like he’s looking for words. Akira lets him, more tired than patient.

“I trust you,” he says finally, looking up, looking right in his eyes. Akira, the confused kid, the startled deer, he just stares back.

“You helped me find myself,” Ryuji says, rubs his neck like he’s bashful. “Dunno. Maybe you can help him, too. Just…” a playful punch on the shoulder here, an uncertain laugh there. “Be careful, man.”

Akira blinks once, twice. Deflates, a little. “Thanks, Ryuji. I will.”

He nods, determined. “I know we all gotta move forwards.” Scratching his head, Ryuji says, “Cuz like… how can you grow when you’re standin’ still?”

“Uh,” Akira says, “Trees?”

Ryuji kisses his teeth. “Damn. Thought I said somethin’ cool there for a second.”

“Well, you tried.”

Ryuji adds another bruise to his arm, them both laughing off the rest. They bounce back just as fast as they always have. He goes on ahead, taking the stairs two at a time like he’s been, like he’s trying to prove his training’s paid off.

Akira takes a breath before he follows, fills up his lungs to the roots, like maybe just one diffused bomb is enough to spare the foundation.

 

\- - -

 

The school roof isn’t the best place for this. Shivering in their coats, huddled in desk chairs against the vents where it blocks most of the wind, they all look miserable. Leblanc would be better, and Akira did say so, like he’s an idiot, but, you know. Something something enemy territory something something.

He's been staring at a crack in the floor so long he’s seeing triple.

“Yeah but… is he really still sticking to this?” Teething her lip, knees drawn up to her chest for the warmth, Ann says, “How can he?”

Yusuke nods. Standing against the far wall, arms crossed, he looks perfectly unbothered. “He can’t very well deceive us like this.”

“This is why I wanted minimal contact while he’s in this state,” Makoto sighs. She’s tight as a high wire, spine held flush against the seat back like a priest and with hard eyes to match. “If he thinks we suspect him, we can’t do anything we planned.”

Akira makes himself blink, and not flinch. Taking his hands out of his pockets would maybe stop his palms sweating, but right now, uncurling his fists’d be like ripping out building supports.

The grand ol’ plan. Futaba’s idea into Makoto’s brainchild. Her sermon, them all following it like doctrine, like it’s something she didn’t make up with mostly herself in mind.

That’s hardly fair, Akira thinks, and thinks it again. Not only herself, fine, just definitely not a whole lot else.

“It’s not like we can ignore him…” Ann doesn’t sound like she’s sure about that.

“Our top priority should be curing this,” Yusuke says.

Haru’s voice squeaks through, the first time she’s talked all day. “You want to help him _more_?” She’s still angry, yeah. But Akira’s not sure she really knows how to be, sounding about as intimidating as a mouse in Makoto’s church.

“Helpin’ him to help ourselves. Right, Leader?” Ryuji nudges an elbow in his direction. Akira thinks he sees him wink. Could be the spots in his vision, though.

“This plan can’t go to waste,” says Makoto, firm. “Not if he means to follow through. It’s all we have.”

All we have, huh.

“But… isn’t it super weird it hasn’t worn off yet?”

Yeah… it is.

“Is there somethin’ we can do?”

Maybe…

“We’ve tried all of our curatives already.”

That’s not it.

“Shouldn’t have wasted them in the first place.”

He needed…

“That’s for sure.”

Help.

“Leader?”

Akira looks up, to five pairs of eyes watching him. Blinking to refocus, he can only meet about half.

“I should head back,” he hears himself say. “Check on him.”

Makoto tenses even more, set to snap like brittle bone out of the corner of his eye. Ann starts to stand. “Are you sure that’s—“

“Morgana’s been on guard duty all day. Already said I’d be back sooner than this.”

Haru turns her head away, in the other corner.

“Alone?” Yusuke comes to touch his shoulder. “Will you be alright?”

Akira pushes off the wall, grabs his bag.

“Course I will,” he says, and heads for the stairs.

 

\- - -

 

Halfway down the stairwell, exhale focused on warming his hands, the door to the roof behind him opens and closes. The tap-tap of steps on the stairs sounds just above, light as a ballerina. Akira’s gonna have a permanent knot between his shoulders, at this rate.

“Akira,” Haru says when she catches up, so delicate it has him bracing for impact.

One hand on the railing, he turns and hums like a question. And before she says any more, she presses her lips together, and just looks at him a second. Haru, she doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t wring her hands, doesn’t bite her lip or rock on her heels. If she’s nervous, if she’s searching for words, Akira can’t see it. He can’t read her. Being the daughter of a diplomat, could be that’s the point.

A second after awkward and just a few before impolite, Haru says, “You trust us, don’t you?” Akira laughs a little, lets it fade into some kind of cough when Haru doesn’t laugh back. “As your teammates, I mean.”

As meek as she is her eyes are intense, all serious, with a business-meeting-tone to match. Akira’s not really sure what she’s getting at. Looking at her curls, the designer sweater over her thrift store uniform, for the dozenth time Akira’s thinking how she sticks out like a solid-gold thumb. Why she’s lying down with the dogs at Shujin and not in some expensive boarding school out in the mountains of who-knows-where, he really couldn’t tell you.

“Yeah, of course I do,” he says, makes his voice come out firm as a handshake. He shifts his weight down a step, brings their eyes level. “Do you trust me? As the leader?”

Haru hesitates, brings a hand to her mouth so Akira can’t see which way the corners are turning, up or down.

They’ve fought together, and Akira’s never seen her rattled, barely ever seen her be anything but put-together. She still is, standing here in front of him, photo-album perfect, but Akira can almost feel something like nerves radiate off of her. Or maybe he’s just looking for some part of her to relate to. After all, only time he’s ever seen a curl out of place is when her psyche itself and ripped its way out of her head. Akira even watched her watch her father die, and she was only a shade darker than porcelain, then.

“Makoto is very worried,” she says.

Her evasion. Her non-answer.

“Yeah,” says Akira, “I guess we all are,”

She nods, soft and polite, and he hums, just matching her manners. It’s a good thing there’s no students around after the last bell. Akira’s just thinking how uncomfortable this must look. Neither of them will break eye contact, how she’s probably been taught and how Akira won’t take the loss of footing. So they’re just staring, delinquent and rich kid, barely talking.

It’s not fair for him to say, to call her cold, and never would out loud. Everybody copes different. He can’t look at her sideways for not being a basket case, after.

She smiles at him again, customer-service sweet. Says, “We’re all on the same side, Akira,” before she makes her way back up the stairs.

“You’re the second person to tell me that today,” he mutters, into the air after her.

 

\- - -

 

The bells of Leblanc ring behind him like the welcome wagon.

Sojiro flicks an eye up to Akira from the TV, keeps on drying some old glass with some old rag. Akira lifts a hand, answered with a nod of his chin.

“Up to no good?”

Either he’s not worried, or he’s pretending not to be worried, and Akira’s not sure which one he’s wants it to be.

“Depends on who you ask,” he says, wry.

Sojiro grunts, some half-amused out-breath, goes back to watching the news. Akira breathes out a little, breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and makes his way up the stairs.

He’s barely past the threshold when he hears the sound of little paws scrambling on hard wood.

“You’re here!” And Morgana’s whispering voice is pretty much just as loud as his talking voice. “Good, I’m _starving_.”

Akira rolls his eyes, leans down to scritch between his ears.

Looking over while Morgana purrs, Akechi’s curled in on himself facing the back of the couch, the whole of him clenched so tight and still in his sleep that Akira’d bet he’s giving himself neck problems. His breathing is shallow and even, barely even moving his chest.

Getting up to pull a spare blanket over him, Akira asks a careful, “How was he?”

Morgana’s ear tips forward like raising an eyebrow. “He didn’t say much.” One of a dozen knots between his shoulders goes just a little loose. “But… I don’t know. He seemed… jumpy.”

Akira chews on his thumb. Hums. “Wonder if he'll jump.”

Morgana hops up on the bed, watching them both. “We should all be worried, you know,” he says, in that know-it-all tone Akira might want to deck someone else for. “If you asked the others, I bet they wouldn’t mind taking shifts!”

“It’ll be fine.” Akira waves a hand, sitting down at his desk. “I can stay with him for awhile now.”

“You want to help him, right?” Morgana’s claws are poking in and out of his paws, him anxiously kneading the duvet. That’s one way to put it. “We do, too! So let _us_ help _you_ help _him_."

  
Akira snorts, despite himself. Morgana gives a frustrated little mewl, and Akechi stirs there on the couch. Morgana’s hackles go up, just a little, and Akira’s really about to break his eye-roll record of the day.

“It’s fine, Mona,” he says, bringing his voice down whisper-quiet. “I’ve got homework, anyway. You can go get some food from Boss.”

Morgana’s eyes flick with his tail, back and forth from Akira to Akechi, but then his stomach rumbles, decides for them both.

He sighs, hops off the bed. “Boss said he left a pot of curry for when he wakes up.”

“Thanks. I’ll see if he wants any in a bit.”

Morgana nods once, and heads out.

Looking over, Akechi looks like he’s probably still in some dream. Fingers twitching, eyes shut tight and lashes fluttering. Akira takes some books out of his bag, quiet as he can. He really does have a lot of homework. Might as well play catch up.

He doesn’t get much done, mind wandering as it is. Halfway through answering a history question he halfway didn’t read, he feels eyes on him.

Akechi’s voice is still thick with sleep when he says, “No work for me tonight?”

Akira doesn’t look up from his desk. “Figured you needed the rest.”

He mumbles something, tongue only half-awake. Akira gives him the courtesy of not listening.

“Boss has some dinner for you,” says Akira. “Gimmie a minute, okay?” Akechi nods his thank-you.

He slips downstairs to find plates and mugs waiting off to the side. Shockingly, there’s a customer or two about, so he gives Morgana and Sojiro a quick nod while he helps himself. A bit of finagling finds him with two plates and two mugs balanced in his hands, a couple of forks sticking dumbly out of his pocket as he makes for the stairs again, slow going. He hears them both trying not to laugh behind him.

Back in the attic, thankfully with no food-related casualties, Akechi’s looking much more put-together in the few minutes he was alone. Through a yawn, he says, “No visitors, either?” Akira sets his plate and mug down in front of the TV next to him, their makeshift coffee table, shakes his head no. “They want you to rest too, believe it or not.”

Akechi laughs a little, sleepy and amused. “Worried, are they? Your friends are so… interesting.”

Akira hums some acknowledgement as he sits back at his desk, fork in one hand and pencil in another, busies making himself too invested in his reading to talk at all.

“Like Fox,” says Akechi, taking a sip of his coffee, all at once sounding much more awake. “Madarame’s pupil.”

“Fox?” Akira looks up from his work, watches Akechi stretch his neck lightly. “What about him?”

“He doesn’t quite know how to feel about his former master, does he? I understand that quite well.”

Flipping his pencil, thumb and forefinger, Akira’s really gotta consider where he’s going with this. “It was… a tough situation.”

Akechi hums, folds gloved hands placidly over his stomach. “Part of him feels indebted to him, doesn’t it.” His eyes look a little lost, shining in the low light, and when did it get so dark out? Where is this coming from? “You always do. Perhaps a part of you always will be.”

His brain wakes up damn fast, doesn’t it. “What? That’s bullshit.”

Laughing, Akechi says, “You think so?”

It is. Akechi’s gotta know that, too. But whatever part, it must not be strong enough to convince him.

Akira runs a finger along the ridge of his mug, around and around, casting about for which bone is safe is throw.

“The whole city seems to know why I’m here. You too, right?”

Akechi’s all teeth when he nods his head yes.

Akira rolls in his lips. “Then you could say,” he goes on, “I owe the Phantom Thieves to to police.”

Akechi’s head tilts, that smile again like he’s really enjoying himself. Who’s on whose side, again?

“I have the judge to thank. The state, even. The asshole who sued.”

Chuckling, Akechi says, “I see.”

Akira shakes his head. “But that doesn’t mean you believe me.”

He scowls, suddenly, expression switching on a dime, a method actor changing roles. “No. It doesn’t.” The plate in his lap is barely touched, and it hits Akira later than it should that they maybe should’ve opted for plastic silverware.

“You know, the difference between us, Kurusu?” Akechi bites out. “You don’t know what it truly is to _owe_.”

Akira, he smiles a little, despite himself. Shakes his head no. “The difference is,” he replies, slow, “the people I owe don’t come to collect.”

Leaning in, til the streetlights through the window paint a white mask over his face, Akechi scoffs, “Like who?” His smile is dangerous, glowing like that. It’s saccharine when he says, “Like dear old mom and dad?”

Akira’s turn to tilt his head, one degree for every drop in air temperature as Akechi’s face distorts.

Here, Akira should maybe turn on the light. Should maybe call Morgana, maybe disarm the ticking while it’s still half-muted. But he’s not scared, not of Akechi. He’s angry, but not at him, no matter what his plans are. And Akira’s got a hunch that that’s exactly what he wants to say. Because any way he looks at it, Goro Akechi can’t be the enemy they’re after. So maybe Goro’s got some enemies, too.

“Don’t know what they have to do with this,” is what he settles on.

“So you’d defend them, then?” He sneers.

“Yeah, I will,” Akira says, keeps on the defensive. Maybe Akechi will just up and show his hand.

“They banish you away to the city to live in some filthy attic like a shameful secret, like, like you’re--“ Goro breathes, sharp. Akira stares, ever sharper. “And you defend them?”

So that’s it. Trade one tragic upbringing for another. He wants a reason, wants Akira just as angry as he is. Akira knows what he’s looking for. He saw it in Yusuke, maybe. But Akira, he doesn’t have all that much to tell.

“They’re good people,” he says, carefully. Goro’s eyes look wild, that makes no sense, makes no sense. “They did this for me,” he says, “not _to_ me.”

“Everything they did,” he hisses, “was _to_ me.”

His hands are twitching, fists curling and uncurling in his gloves in a way that’s gotta be opening wounds, and maybe that’s the point.

“Akechi, who’s they?”

He scoffs, scrapes his throat. “Is that your first question?”

“You did say you’d give me a few,” Akira says.

All his breaths are deliberate now, ragged intakes heaving in and out like a rusted machine, rattling like the old broken filter on the A/C, every summer back home. The one Akira can’t go back to, the one with the big yard and the loving family he hasn’t seen in months, all because of--

“It’s not a them,” Goro says, heaves a breath. “It’s _him_.”

Funny, because Akira’s got a _him_ too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one day i'll kick my depression in the teeth and update this in a reasonable amount of time. until then... thanks for sticking with it :)


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